Your Ad Here: Web Surprise Hits ’08 Race

YOUR AD HERE: WEB SURPRISE HITS '08 RACE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg]
Political campaigns are still trying to get a handle on the power of the Internet to communicate with and motivate voters. Candidates and their supporters are using the Web more than ever to reach out frequently to visitors of sites who they believe will probably be interested in their promises and positions. On Monday, backers of Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, raised more than $4 million on behalf of his presidential campaign through an appeal on a site created to appeal to libertarians. But on the Web, campaigns are also venturing into unruly territory where they risk losing the thing they crave most: control. When it comes to television, politicians, like all marketers, have decades of experience and reams of research to help guide them toward the audience they are seeking and to shape messages that will push the proper buttons. But for all the promise of the Web to allow sophisticated microtargeting of messages, it remains to many campaigns a bit of a Wild West where the rules are still being written and politicians by and large are newly arrived settlers. Television is still the primary means by which the campaigns reach voters by the millions, and even now, Internet advertising makes up a small fraction of the candidates’ advertising budgets. But campaign strategists say the Internet provides unrivaled opportunity to draw volunteers and donations for mere pennies, through Web sites that often make their interests and affiliations clear.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/us/politics/07ads.html?ref=todayspaper
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